Visaki wrote:I'm still puzzled why he want's atheists to answer this question. Or is it just one of those pathetic "gotcha" baits that theist God-of-the-gappers love so much?

leroy wrote:An intelligent designer would, or at least could have, created a brain capable of asking philosophical questions, God wouldn't care if this brain is more complex and consumes more energy than a brain without this ability is he finds this brain apt for whatever purposes he might have.

Yep, well done Visaki - as predicted.

LEROY wrote:But evolution is more likely to create a simple brain than a complex brain (a complex brain would require more random mutations) and natural selection is more likely to select a brain that consumes less energy rather than a brain that consumes more energy, in the absence of God there is no obvious reason as for why complex philosophical evolved.

LEROY thinking that evolution posits that complex brains sprang from nothing, that no gradual evolution of brains is either posited, observed, or widely understood as exactly what evolution is about.

Clearly wrong; clearly doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, thus the failure to support his claims - because they are just figments of a paucity of comprehension. Clearly thinks that just because he can think something, that it must be true in the real world. Completely clueless, in other words.

Creationism - when you have no good reasons for believing, so all you can do is use the dogma of your own belief to pretend that its in operation in that which you reject.

LEROY's capitulation of the well known Creationist Pokemon Evolution. But how did brains just come from nothing.... was it magic?

Only if you posit that God nose-wiggled them into existence!

LEROY wrote:Ievolution is not likely to create unnecessary complexity, if a complex brain capable of asking philosophical questions has no selective benefit, why would it evolve?

Clearly doesn't understand that evolution routinely creates unnecessary complexity specifically because it is blind to optimals, to future effects, and only produces immediate tangible benefits.

Again, clearly wrong, clearly a strawman of evolution, how very Creationist.

leroy wrote:besides a brain that wonders about all that deep philosophical stuff is more complex and requires more energy than a brain that doesn't wonder about that stuff,

Baseless assertion. You need to provide evidence that mental masturbation is more complex than problem solving, language, or memory.

leroy wrote:so why did brains that can wonder about deep philosophical stuff evolved? why not keeping a simpler brain, that consumes less energy that is efficient in communicating, learning, remembering etc. but that simply doesn't wonder about all these philosophical stuff.

Once again, baseless assertion. Why do you think those are not one in the same? You need to provide a source that a brain that can solve problems, learns, remembers, and communicates like ours, but does not mentally masturbate, is actually less complex (or even possible) than what we have.

Visaki wrote:I'm still puzzled why he want's atheists to answer this question. Or is it just one of those pathetic "gotcha" baits that theist God-of-the-gappers love so much?

leroy wrote:But evolution is more likely to create a simple brain than a complex brain (a complex brain would require more random mutations) and natural selection is more likely to select a brain that consumes less energy rather than a brain that consumes more energy, in the absence of God there is no obvious reason as for why complex philosophical evolved.

leroy wrote:however the human brain is unnecessarily too complex, we wonder about the existence of God, our purpose in life, the purpose of the universe etc.....clearly wondering about these stuff is meaningless in terms of survival, we don't need to wonder about these stuff in order to survive, reproduce and pass our genes to the next generation.

And finally, the point you're overlooking which terminally defeats your central assumption is that, in evolution, the organisms you're in competition with are, for the most part -and entirely for the most critical part - members of your own species. Are you going to tell me that ability in abstract thought doesn't confer an advantage? Are scientists who sell millions of popular science books not enjoying an evolutionary advantage over those of us who just blather on the internet?

besides a brain that wonders about all that deep philosophical stuff is more complex and requires more energy than a brain that doesn't wonder about that stuff,

so why did brains that can wonder about deep philosophical stuff evolved? why not keeping a simpler brain, that consumes less energy that is efficient in communicating, learning, remembering etc. but that simply doesn't wonder about all these philosophical stuff.

Why? What an awful grasp of evolution you have! It doesn't have goals, it's a process.

Sparhafoc wrote:If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. Emerson M. Pugh, The Biological Origin of Human Values

That's a thing of beauty. Hadn't come across that before.

Sadly, as is usually the case, we drop it in to a conversation with a person who can't and won't process it on ideological grounds, and those of us with the competence to don't actually discuss it.

It's a shame, because there is a very similar line of reasoning there to the weak anthropic principle, and it's one of those many arguments which burst the hubris of the specialness of humans arguments.

For example, it might be worth considering whether it's possible that any brain can be complicated enough to understand itself. Perhaps there's some kind of mental Turing test to be had there.

The brain evolved to become more and more complex as our social situation and culture became more complex. Intelligence allows for Darwinian evolution to take a backseat, instead of humans evolving a thick coat of fur over millions of years to move into colder habitats, someone just skinned a dead animal and had the idea to wrap it around themselves. Their friends all imitated this and thus our species adapted to the cold in the space of time it takes to have an idea rather than millions of years. The evolutionary benefits of intelligence are immense. There is no reason why they shouldn't be complex in the context of Darwinian evolution.